Climate Futures

The Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative explores how imagination – or lack thereof – shapes humanity’s response to climate change, and how imagination merged with science can create solutions to climate challenges. The initiative is a partnership among CSI, the Walton Sustainability Solutions Initiative, and the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. Learn more at climateimagination.asu.edu.

Everything Change features twelve stories from our 2016 Climate Fiction Short Story Contest along with along with a foreword by science fiction legend and contest judge Kim Stanley Robinson and an interview with renowned climate fiction author Paolo Bacigalupi. Everything Change is free to download, read, […]

The Imagination and Climate Futures Initiative at Arizona State University invites writers to submit short stories that explore climate change, science and human futures for its first Climate Fiction Short Story Contest. The submission deadline is Jan. 15, 2016, and contest entry is free. The contest will be judged by science fiction legend Kim Stanley Robinson.

Every sea on Earth is plagued by massive amounts of trash. Refuse in the ocean kills hundreds of thousands of birds and marine mammals per year, and hazardous heavy metals bind to plastic particles and enter our food chain. The Ocean Trash Write-Away contest challenges writers to imagine solutions to this global challenge and write an inspiring short story set in a future where we’ve turned the tide on ocean trash.

In Paolo Bacigalupi’s most recent science fiction novel, The Water Knife, Phoenix is dried up and California and Nevada are not too far behind. The millions of people who rely on the Colorado River to survive are not only thirsty, but fighting for their lives. It’s a compelling story that captures a not-so-distant future. Will Phoenix eventually collapse? Will the river dry up?

What might a world without oil look like? How will human societies cope with massive changes in the Earth’s climate? How will we adapt to survive the future? And how can storytelling and art — alongside science and technology — help us confront the challenge of climate change?

Climate fiction, or “cli fi,” can be a dreary genre. Storytellers like to make a grim business of climate change, populating their narratives with a humorless onslaught of death, destruction, drowned monuments, and starving children. Margaret Atwood is the conspicuous exception, somehow managing to tackle the subject, including these familiar elements, with deadpan wit and an irreverent playfulness, making it both more interesting and believable. The flood is coming, her MaddAddam trilogy promises, but there is hope.

This article originally appeared in ASU News. Internationally renowned novelist and environmental activist Margaret Atwood will visit Arizona State University this November to discuss the relationship between art and science, and the importance of creative writing and imagination for addressing social and environmental challenges. Atwood’s visit […]

Arizona State University was selected for a competitive, five-year award of $20 million by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to launch a research partnership, effective June 1, to explore approaches for anticipating and mitigating national security risks associated with climate change.